In The Year 2003
by robert3A-SN
Summary: As the clock winds down to the beginning of 2004, Butters looks back on everything good and bad that he went through in 2003- and surprisingly, most of his ordeals turned out really good.


Generally, it was just another normal New Years Eve night around the world. They were getting ready to drop the ball at Time Square, the millions of people there had their asses violated big time by cavity searches that would detect if they were terrorists, Dick Clark was Botoxed out of his mind as he hosted his New Year's show, you know, the usual stuff. But for several of the people that lived in South Park, it was a little different for them this time around- mostly cause they were about hundreds of miles from South Park this year.  
  
This year they were all watching the New Year's show at a large winter cabin they had been staying in since December 20'th. And of course, they were all starting to have fun at the cabin just before they had to leave it the next day so the kids could go back to school. All in all there were 8 kids there from South Park, 1 kid from out of town, and 11 adults either watching the show and getting ready to use noisemakers, or passed out or asleep, and in Kenny's dad's case, both of the last two parts. They had all had a rough start while staying at this cabin- 1 kid most of all- but after Christmas things finally started to gel for them. And now they were all here at the cabin ready to celebrate the New Year with a minimum of bitterness and fighting hangovers. Some had already fallen asleep from staying up too late or had drunk too much- Kenny's dad easily fit both catagories- but most were ready to ring in the New Year.  
  
Yep, this was just one final little twist to the already twisty year of 2003, which for the South Parkers was filled with the usual insanity, psycho famous people, and incidents where every single person in town was dumber than a doornail except for Stan and Kyle. But for them and the other kids, the year also brought more unexpected surprises, lessons that were more valuable than those "I learned something today" speeches they always forgot about by the next week, and more situations that tested them- and in some cases, made their lives change forever. 3 of those kids had experienced those problems more than anyone and would never be the same after 2003- but we've covered the lessons and problems Stan and Wendy went through to death and back. And since we're sick of hearing about them and their past actions, they weren't in the mood to look back on it either, since they had New Year's partying to do if they could stay awake. But the other kid who went through more this year than anyone had some thinking to do about how he survived in the year 2003.  
  
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With less than 5 minutes left until midnight, Butters Stotch figured he might as well get one last cup of soda before the Time Square ball dropped. And since he couldn't just walk to the kitchen to get a drink, it would take him longer to get himself there via the wheelchair, so he figured he'd better roll like the wind. He looked down on the wheelchair he was sitting on, put his hands on the wheels, and rolled himself towards the kitchen. A few days ago he would have collided against the wall several times due to his lack of steering the chair, but he had improved with help and so he only crashed once before he got in the kitchen to get his drink.  
  
He rolled himself to the refrigerator to get a soda bottle, in part to distact himself from the itching on his leg. That cast on his right leg really made him itch sometimes, but it would hurt to stratch it even though his leg was healing. However the cast would be taken off in a few days when they got back to South Park, so he could walk while hurting himself itching at the same time again.  
  
Still, to spend the whole holiday either in bed or in a wheelchair didn't make him too happy. But admittingly, if his friends hadn't{eventually}come to his aid and helped him get better, it would have been much worse for him. Much like most of the things he had been through this year. And even though he was ending it in a wheelchair, this was probably a better way to end 2003 than how he started it.  
  
A social reject, a friendless nerd, and someone with a split personality disorder. That's how he was when he started the year. When thinking about it, he didn't usually get through a flashback of those days without getting scared, depressed, or both. In the early months of 2003, Butters had still been unable to get over being dumped by his "friends" Stan, Kyle, and Cartman, and his attempts to get revenge by destroying the world as Professor Chaos didn't make things better. And even when he did do something news worthy, his parents grounded him for it a second later, sometimes roughly. Butters knew he often didn't know much of what went on sometimes, but he knew that having to deal with all that was just as bad as a broken leg. Sure, people would call him a whining pussy for thinking that and for not getting over being dumped, but those people wouldn't be thinking from his point of view. He thought having friends to play with and to have help him when he was down was the most important thing in the world, and the fellas pretty much told him he wasn't good enough to have those kind of friends when they dumped him. And although his parents were the greatest, he now knew they could be unfair and harsh sometimes- if he knew that then, he would have felt a lot worse for them grounding him all the time, he wouldn't have used the excuse that it was all his fault then.  
  
How was he supposed to expect the year would get any better for him back then? With no real friends, a failure to do anything evil to get revenge, and getting grounded almost every few weeks, where could a kid like him find the light at the end of the tunnel? He was crazy back then, but he couldn't possibly be nuts enough back then to think he'd look back at the end of the year and consider it the best year of his life.  
  
But the first step towards that started with Kyle, his help in getting rid of Professor Chaos, then his slow acceptance back into the gang, the arrival of a new friend, finding a new best friend in South Park, connecting with his parents after being seperated from them for weeks, and then finding a broken leg- and love- in the end. He sure wasn't liked enough to be invited to a year end party at a winter cabin in the beginning of the year, but now he made enough progress to do it. All because of-  
  
"Butters? Butters, hurry up and come back, the ball's gonna go down in a few minutes!"  
  
Well, Julia certainly helped, hearing her voice from the other room reminded him of that. So Butters decided to continue his reminiscing in the living room, but first he poured his cup of soda, put it between his legs, and rolled back into the room. There, he stopped right next to the couch where his parents and a few of his friends were sitting, the others were sitting on the floor or sleeping on it. Julia was on the couch and next to Butters, and he saw her smile at his arrival before he picked up his drink. That was all Butters needed to smile back, and he kept smiling as he looked at everyone else just watching TV and practicing their noisemakers for midnight. There were 20 people in this cabin, one, Ike, was upstairs asleep, and some of the adults had gone upstairs to either throw from drinking too much wine too early, sleep off their wine drinking, or both. But all of Butters friends or semi friends were still there watching TV- all the people that had helped make his life a little better than it was when 2002 ended were there with him now.  
  
Kyle was sitting in front of the TV, occasionally having to tell Cartman to move his fat ass away since he was blocking his view. Butters looked at him, remembering all the trouble he went through during this vacation just for him. He regreted every minute of that before Christmas morning, since his efforts to get Kyle a special Christmas present to make him feel better about not celebrating Christmas resulted in his broken leg. He rode the Hill of Doom so Kyle would pay him the money he needed for Kyle's gift, then his leg broke, and Kyle was blaming Butters for it anyway. He mostly did it so his friends wouldn't blame him for having Christmas taken away as a punishment, but it was still very hurtful nonetheless. Butters still had a hard time remembering how drunk he was on soup after realizing that. His main goal for this vacation was to make Kyle feel better about the holidays, and for all his efforts he had a broken leg and Kyle hated him for it. And in turn, he had started to hate Kyle. Until Christmas morning, that is.  
  
It was kind of fitting the way Kyle wrapped up the year by making him feel better, since that's pretty much how the year began for him. Back in Febuary he still had no friends and was a reject, and then during a school interview project he finally let out his pain and suffering in front of Kyle. He did it even though he suspected he'd get no sympathy- why would he since no one cared enough about him to feel sorry for him? But Kyle did somehow. From what he found out later on he really did rethink how he had treated Butters in the past, since he wasn't mean enough to cause all that pain on purpose. Of course, Butters's Professor Chaos side tried to make Butters believe he was. Somehow, through Kyle showing him the compassion he had never gotten from anyone else in his peer group, Butters had gotten enough courage to not give in to his evil desires, or to the evil side of him that gave those desires to him. And after Butters literally beat himself up in school in an effort to stop Professor Chaos from controlling him, Kyle convinced the others to give Butters another chance.  
  
Butters could still remember his exact feelings at that moment after Kyle finished that speech in school. He wasn't used to someone speaking on his behalf and sticking up for him, he had gotten used to people not caring about what he thought or about what he wanted- not that he hadn't tried like the dickens to make people care. But without even trying, he had made Kyle care that much to tell his friends they had been too hard on him. He had tried for years to gain friends by treating his classmates with respect and kindness, even though everyone with actual compassion and sincerity was called a whining pussy in South Park. And yet by crying like a pussy and sharing his despair, he had gained the respect of a popular kid, who was probably tempted to stand back and laugh like hell as he fought himself- but he didn't. He chose to help him get better instead. At that point, for the first time ever, he felt that he was good enough to have people care about him as a friend, for real this time and not in the fake way that Stan, Kyle, and Cartman had taken him in.  
  
How could he not be brave enough to get rid of his evil side once and for all after that? He wasn't not that brave, of course.  
  
Butters turned his attention to Stan, sitting on the couch in between his barely awake dad and his wide awake girlfriend Wendy. In his head, Butters couldn't help but thank Stan for his help back then too, Kyle's attempt to help Butters probably wouldn't have worked if Stan hadn't backed him up. In the main group, Cartman was the racist butthole and Kenny didn't do much of anything anymore, so really the only two people in that group you could get through to were Stan and Kyle. Stan hadn't done as much for him as a friend as Kyle had done, but Stan was still the smart, resourceful, and popular leader of the gang, so being his friend obviously was a big help to him. Stan and Kyle were the good, smart kids in his class, even though they had dumped him without a thought back them. But unlike Cartman or the other bullies in class, they were decent enough to realize when they had made a mistake, so that made it easier for them to give Butters a break from now on. They liked to trick him into doing things all the time last year, but now that they saw what that did to him, they had backed off of him a great deal. And again, they mostly agreed on everything, so when Kyle tried to convince Stan to lay off Butters, Stan was able to agree. He really had to admire Stan for being that open about it.  
  
Thanks to them, he had a bit more respect around town, and he had learned something else valuable. Before he took his friends rejecting him so personally, and so insanely believed that they would always be his best friends back them. But through experience and knowledge, he now knew he would never be their best friend and they would often ignore him or be annoyed by him. But now he knew not to take it so seriously, because through Kyle and Stan's newfound respect for him, he knew that even if they didn't like him sometimes, they would try to help him if he really needed them. That's what true friendship was all about, coming through for someone when they needed friends the most. Kyle learned that lesson this Christmas, and when he did he stopped blaming Butters and got everyone to give him presents on Christmas morning. Hell, they almost got killed at the mall fighting last minute shoppers to get those gifts. But although the gifts were fun, they didn't really matter that much to him. What mattered was that even though his friends could be hard, they would be willing to stand up and come through for him when he needed them the most. Thanks to that, he wasn't so miserable about breaking his leg on the holidays anymore. Because now he had learned not to be so crazy about earning friends, and as such the fellas were able to like him easier- and realize they wanted to help him when he was down from now on.  
  
Kyle and Stan had helped him get that far this year, and as such he was able to make more friends. He wondered how Pip was celebrating the New Year back at the orphanage in South Park. Those other kids probably had some kind of New Year's game ready where they kicked his ass, but unlike before Butters reached out to him, Pip would have the sense to fight back even if he'd probably lose. Butters knew what it was like to be alone all the time, and he knew after gaining his friends back that no one should be alone, everyone deserves a friend to watch out for them and to care two bits about them. Pip never had that, and Butters had to break that news to him- but that nearly backfired big time once he got through to Pip and Pip turned evil to get revenge. But Butters was able to stop him before he destroyed the school with a deadly stink bomb, and somehow his efforts got Pip to be good again and got the others to pick on Pip a little less. In his heart, Butters knew he probably wouldn't have had the courage to do something like that if it wasn't for his own friendship ordeals months earlier. But because he did, he had helped someone gain more self respect, and that was certainly something to brag about. Pip was still ignored by others and still pushed around a bit, but it wasn't as extreme as before and at least now Pip had the bravery to not put up with it as much. Butters had really changed Pip in those ways, and the thought that he could actually have that effect on another person really made him proud. In a way, it validated all his own efforts to make friends, since if he hadn't ultimatly gotten them, he might never have helped Pip and helped turn his life around. That was a real encouraging thought.  
  
Butters noticed there was about less than 2 minutes left till midnight, so he figured he'd better hurry up remembering everything else quick. He started by looking at Eric Cartman, still fighting with Kyle over where he was sitting. There wasn't much to think about Eric, sometimes he thought he was a real friend to him and he wound up tricking him, like the Casa Bonita incident and the fact that he was the one that broke Butters leg- just so he could beat him in a stupid race they didn't have permission to race. Butters had always tried not to be too steamed about things that happened to him, but Cartman's little trick was definatly an exception- the fat prick broke his leg and he went through hell because of it, why the hell wouldn't he be pissed?! However, he hadn't said anything like that to him, he was just waiting for that cast to come off. Then when Cartman least suspected it, Butters would get him back in his own way. He had some good ideas while sitting around in his wheelchair, and Kyle had come up with some plans of his own. They still had a few days to think of a final draft plan, so there was no worry there. Eric would get his soon enough- though Butters knew he'd probably trick him into thinking he was his friend again after that, Eric was really good at fooling him. Hopefully his New Years resolution to not fall for Eric's tricks so easily in 2004 would last.  
  
Butters shrugged it off and figured he should now think of someone he actually liked at the moment. He found Wendy to fit that bill a second later. She was trying to keep Stan awake right now and would probably start making out with him once midnight came. Everyone knew about what Stan and Wendy had been through this year, it made all the papers- and even though that one paper reported that they had broken up, Butters knew they were still together and would stay that way for a while. Butters hoped he could have a relationship like that someday[though he was on his way with Julia]and he was happy for Stan since he now knew Stan was lucky to have Wendy. Although he never talked with her at all before, somehow he got stuck with her in a few scrapes this year, like when Julia first visited, when she helped him get the others to lay off Pip, when they had to rescue her from that evil version of her in the other universe- and that....unusual situation where he got a crush on her. He nearly went crazier than usual trying to get rid of it, but Wendy understood that he never wanted to act on it and only wanted to stay friends, and she helped him calm down- though it was probably by luck that he wasn't tempted more after she kissed him to get his feelings outta his system. But that didn't make things akward at all and Stan only got pissed off after he found out about it for a little while.   
  
And then of course, Wendy turned out to be the only kid here other than Julia that helped him right away after his leg broke, since everyone else was too mad at him because they had their Christmas taken away. But both Julia and Wendy had gotten the others to help Butters out, and he heard that Wendy was the one that ultimatly got Kyle to help Butters out by saying old time sappy Christmas cliches. Yep, Stan was really lucky to have a girlfriend who was that nice and smart and knew how to use Christmas special stereotypes. Butters still liked her, but not in that way anymore- now he looked up to her kinda like a nice big sister[unlike Stan's bullish real big sister]who he could count on for advice and support. He definatly didn't know anyone like that before this year, that's for sure.  
  
And sometimes he was grounded enough so he couldn't even find such a friend, thanks in part to his parents. His mom and dad were squeezed into the middle of the group sitting on the floor, but it didn't look like they minded having to be so close together. Of course that was a relief to Butters after that whole incident with his dad being queer and his mom trying to kill Butters afterwards. But now they were okay- in more ways than one, Butters had to admit.  
  
He always thought it was his own fault for doing something wrong even when he was being tricked. He was always convinced that it was his fault by his angry parents after his troublemaking was discovered. He always thought he could be such a little bastard and as such, was afraid to do anything to get in that much trouble again. Chris and Linda Stotch helped to shape that part of Butters's personality, the part where he was afraid to do almost anything for fear of getting in trouble- and as such, that part prevented him from gaining real friends in the first place. But until he was taken away from his parents, Butters didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Then he started to see the truth.   
  
This year he had realized that the reason he could be such a "giant pussy" as Eric called him, was because his parents made him afraid most of the time. He didn't want to believe it since he always thought his parents were the greatest, but through memory and some deep thinking in the orphanage, he saw that his parents could be, well, jerks sometimes towards him. The fear of getting grounded made him afraid of doing almost anything that his friends considered fun, and when he did do those things he got punished. He still hadn't forgotten that one time where he literally got beat up because Eric tricked Mom and Dad into thinking he made nasty phone calls to them- though he had tried to forget. No, over that time away from them he had come to believe his parents were responsible for ruining his life, and he never wanted to go back to them. But if that was true, why was he back with them now in the cabin, and why were they all gonna go home together tomorrow? Butters knew why right away. Because they realized the error of their ways as well.  
  
When the year began, Butters was a little pussy and his parents yelled at him for doing almost anything, especially his father. But now, as 2003 was exactly a minute away from ending, things had changed, maybe not completly, but just enough to make things a lot better. That incident where Butters was taken to the orphanage because of a phone call he himself made against his parents when he was Professor Chaos, that was the wakeup call the Stotches needed, a blessing in very deep cover. They took training courses to learn how to be more patient with Butters, and even when he didn't want to come back to them they still didn't go nuts about it. In fact, his dad told him they would accept his decision to stay in the orphanage if it was what he wanted, since they understood what drove him to wanna get away. Before he would have snatched his ass away and drove him home to get a spanking for putting them through so much hell, but his dad did the complete opposite that night. And after some thinking, Butters decided to go home and see for himself if things would be better. One look at his mom and dad told him they would- and it also told him to cry over having really missed them so much. Since then, he still knew never to get into really big trouble or else he would be grounded, but he now knew his parents would try never to be so extreme about putting that fear into him again. In a way, it made them trust Butters more not to get into such trouble, actually back then it was like they didn't trust him at all to behave, that's why they made him scared so much. But they had learned to trust his judgement and make good choices on his own, and with their support he knew he could now.  
  
Butters took another look at his mom and dad as they started counting down the seconds until midnight, 30 and counting. They still weren't that perfect, and he knew they could still be mad at him big time if he messed up, but for better or worse, they were his parents and he looked up to them and loved them. And this year, something happened to make it more better than worse. It was now easier to see that his parents loved him with all their hearts, through it was brought about by harsh and terrible experiences. But much like the harsh and terrible experiences he had with everyone else this year, it seemed to always end with people giving Butters more credit or apologizing for putting him down. Nothing else like that made him more thankful than with what happened between him and his mom and dad, somehow they had put aside their differences to be all right from now on, at least for now.  
  
Why? Why did things seem to work out this way for him when they never did before? That was the last question Butters had time to think about before midnight. What made this year so different than the last 8? Why did everything end so badly for him back then, and why did it all end so well for him all of a sudden this year? He hadn't changed a bit, he was still the same friendly kid he had always been, but back them he wasn't appreciated at all for his efforts to do good and make friends. Why did it all change this year? How had he gotten such luck to have people actually like him honestly despite being annoying and a pussy? Even if he thought about it until the beginning of 2010, he still wouldn't know. Why was he so lucky this year and why did people actually like him now? His answer was, why bother to look into it too closely? What mattered was that somehow, someway, they did.  
  
There was only 10 seconds left now, so Butters only had time to look at his good fortune one more time in 2003. He was around 4 or 5 classmates who didn't give two craps about him before, but they did now. He was around parents that would protect him and love him without so much intimidation anymore for the rest of his life. He had Christmas presents up in his room that people got for him because they cared about him enough to battle last minute shoppers to get them. And he got all this even though no one would have ever done anything nice for him when 2003 began because they didn't care. What a year it had been. And he was happy that he had remembered everything that made it good before it ended, as he counted down the final few seconds with everyone else.  
  
"3, 2, 1.....hooray!! Happy New-"  
  
Wait, he didn't cover everything. He didn't cover the red headed girl that was kissing him in celebration right now. He didn't cover that he, the wussiest and most nervous kid in his class, had met a girl that fell in love with him. Well, actually it wasn't going to be a full time boyfriend and girlfriend thing because she lived in Texas now and she and her dad were going back there tomorrow. But since Christmas Eve when they made out for the first time, they had agreed that a long distance boyfriend/girlfriend thing would work, since they had been long distance friends for months.   
  
He briefly remembered the first time she came to Mr Garrison's class, how they became friends right away and how he actually fell for her the first time during that time, but he tried to forget how she harshly rejected him at first back then. But he did like remembering how she came back to apologize to him and offered to remain his friend- and then to say goodbye before she left town, he kissed her. She was the first girl he ever kissed and the first girl he had ever made friends with, which they stayed right up until Christmas Eve since she had done so much for him by actually giving him support and staying by his side when he was injured, unlike most of his other friends. And when she kissed him that Christmas Eve night, something clicked inside Butters to make him realize that this time, he was in love for real. He made out with her for the first time, and he assumed it wouldn't be the last. Though she had to go back to Texas with her dad tomorrow, she'd still visit every so often and they'd keep writing to each other when she didn't, so it would be fine. And after everything he had been through in 2003, Butters Stotch considered this improvement in his life the biggest one of all, as his best friend for many months, and his official girlfriend for a week, Julia Simmons, stopped kissing him to catch her breath.  
  
"Happy New Year, Butters." And Butters went on to say the one thing all this thinking about 2003 had led him to believe. After all his adventures and hard work and the realization that people did appreciate him for being nice and for being as good a friend as he could be, this was what he had to say about the new year.  
  
"How c-could it be any happier than the last one?"  
  
THE END- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 


End file.
